Massive vs Zebra

[ewistrand]

Anyways, to the topic...

You can do a fairly good job of emulating Massive with Zebra, but it's going to take work on your part because you have to create your own wavetables to do it. I've done a couple Massive-ish patches with Zebra that've turned out fairly well.

Tarekith's idea of using Zebralette to get your feet wet's a good one. I quite often start my Zebra patches in Zebralette to get an oscillator doing what I want- there's less distracting toys to play with. Once I get that where I want, I open the patch in Zebra (Zebra opens Zebralette patches) and add the icing.

Which one? It'd be a tough call for me if I could only have one or the other. I like and use Massive a lot (I moderate the Massive forum, after all), but Zebra, like all of Urs's work is amazing.

Now, due to popular demand...

Sadly, the same cannot be said of NI, who are known for taking a long time between updates, often requiring people to buy the latest version to (hopefully) fix confirmed bugs.

When you have as many products as NI does with lots of them using legacy source code from versions going back a few years, sometimes doing a new version's the only thing that you can do, especially when you consider the changes in hardware and OSes on both the PC and Mac side.

ew

[Tarekith]

One of these days you and I are going to have to get together for a beer

[ewistrand]

One of these days you and I are going to have to get together for a beer

Sorry, I don't drink. I'll have coffee, though

ew

[Tarekith]

LOL, you NI people are no fun I swear

[ewistrand]

LOL, you NI people are no fun I swear :)

Trust me; I'm a lot more fun if I don't drink. I quit drinking 27 years ago; I'd almost assuredly not be typing this if I hadn't...

ew

[gerard]

Anyways, to the topic...

You can do a fairly good job of emulating Massive with Zebra, but it's going to take work on your part because you have to create your own wavetables to do it. I've done a couple Massive-ish patches with Zebra that've turned out fairly well.

ew

Hehe that sounds fun. Okay then I'm gonna study Massive in Demo mode and try to reproduce it in Zebralette. When I've got some results I'll post it here ... let's say in a year or so

[Fizmarble]

Ok, it's been a year or so. Were you able to recreate this. I am learning more about Zebra. I love Massive. It would be interesting if one could emulate the other.

[Sounds of Samsara]

While I only have the demo of Zebra (I own Massive), I would say that it would be easier for Zebra to emulate Massive than the other way around due to Zebra's ability to create custom wavetables and its modular routing. In fact, you can download a set of wavetables for Zebra that were generated via Massive from the Uhe patch library, found here:

http://www.u-he.com/PatchLib/zebra.html#mseg

In general though, I think they sound different enough to warrant owning both as well as having different enough architectures that the types of sounds one would program on each would likely be unique. To put it another way, I feel that Massive sounds unabashedly "digital" (in a good way) while Zebra tends toward "warmth" and "smoothness" (I know these types of terms are highly subjective and a bit taboo on audio forums, but people need to communicate somehow).

[JuanSOLO]

...To put it another way, I feel that Massive sounds unabashedly "digital" (in a good way) while Zebra tends toward "warmth" and "smoothness" (I know these types of terms are highly subjective and a bit taboo on audio forums, but people need to communicate somehow).

YES!

[Machinesworking]

In general though, I think they sound different enough to warrant owning both as well as having different enough architectures that the types of sounds one would program on each would likely be unique.

Bingo! I use besides hardware, Zebra, Massive, Absynth, Reaktor. They all sound very different from each other, and the workflows reflect it.

[Tweaking Knobs]

Zebra... is the best !!!

[mr.ergonomics]

I don't know, there is something I don't like with massive evelopes. they are really really hard to get right for me.

[Pasha]

Tried both. Got Zebra in the end. I like the approach and the sounds I can get.

[gurumonkey]

i'm pretty sure that URS just released zebralette for FREE to anybody who wants it, so go pick it up and check it out.

[condra]

Huge fan of Zebra, but I have to weigh in for MASSIVE here. Massive passed out Zebra as my second most used synth around a year ago.
(Operator is still my number 1, Zebra is now my number 3)

Technically, and sonically, Zebra can do more than Massive. It also loads quicker, and is very CPU friendly. Fine.

However, patch-making in Zebra is more fiddley and time consuming than with Massive. If I need to make a patch "on the fly", in the middle of a jam, I'll call up Massive, not Zebra.

Zebra is for tweaking into the early hours, coming up with amazing mystical shimmering sequences, while Massive is great for getting a HUGE FAT bass or lead rolled and ready in a couple of minutes.

The patch system is pretty good too, when you get used to it. (I tend to give lots of attributes when saving patches, works for me)

If you have a decent modern computer, you won't find Massive too CPU heavy.

I love to tweak synths, but as time goes on, I'm more and more concerned with getting shit done quickly. If I was doing experimental or IDM, I would probably use Zebra more often.

Of course, Massive also happens to sound awesome.